On Janaushadhi Diwas this year (i.e., March 7th, 2022), Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi stated that the poor and the middle-class benefited from the 'Jan Aushadhi Kendras' that were set up to provide generic drugs at affordable prices. He said that the poor and the middle class saved around Rs.13,000 crore through these stores during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the wake of COVID 19 crisis, the 'Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India'...

-The Hindu 144 institutions were de-empanelled Non-genuine 18,606 hospital transactions were detected in the Ayushman Bharat &NDAsh; Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) with penalty amounting to Rs.29.72 crore being levied on erring hospitals. Also 144 hospitals were de-empanelled from the scheme based on confirmed fraudulent behavior, said the Health Ministry in its reply to the Parliament in the recently concluded session. The Ministry added that the National Health Authority (NHA)—the implementing agency...

-Newsclick.in Work participation has steadily declined, unemployment is at 7% or more and median yearly income in 2020-21 was an abysmal Rs.1.7 lakh, as per CMIE. In the past five years, the economic slowdown, pandemic and its disastrous response and the Narendra Modi government’s indifference to the common people has led to a steadily worsening economic crisis. The government, perhaps buoyed by electoral successes, has given up on reviving the living condition...

-Hindustan Times Almost two and a half years after the 2017-18 Consumption Expenditure Survey (CES) was scrapped, the ‘great Indian poverty debate’ seems to have resurrected itself. The second season of this debate, interestingly, has started from Washington DC, not India. Poverty statistics in India have always been the subject of controversy. The country saw a big debate on the trend in poverty and the veracity of poverty estimates in the 2000s....

-The Hindu CIC rules information not exempted under Right to Information Act, Union Home Ministry says records destroyed every six months. Even as the controversy over the Government of India allegedly deploying Pegasus spyware to snoop on top politicians, journalists, activists etc refuses to die down, the Ministry of Home Affairs has sprung a surprise saying it maintains no data of lawful interceptions made by authorised intelligence/law&NDAsh;enforcing agencies. In a written submission before...